Is it reform if insurers and drug makers win?

So, we now have health-care reform. I’ll admit that I didn’t spend the weekend glued to the TV seeing if something would happen. While I’m a little surprised Congress actually got something done, the reform falls short of the superlatives used to describe it.

So many of the original ideas were traded away in this bill that it lacks some of the most crucial aspects of reform. For one thing, this is more a slow burn than sweeping reform. Most of the biggest provisions don’t kick in until 2014. Universal coverage – or at least coverage for 95 percent of all Americans – won’t come before 2019.

Thanks to the mandated coverage, they’ll pick up 20 million new customers, which will help them offset higher costs from having to shed some of their more egregious current practices. At the same time, the public option is long gone, so insurers basically get to tap a government-mandated market.

In the short-term, expect insurers to jack up premiums. It is, after all, what they do, and it’s what businesses worried about most in the reform effort.

The other big winner in the bill: drug companies. They scored key victories in beating back the advance of generic competition and avoiding costly changes to Medicare Part D.

In other words, the money flows in the same direction it always has in the health care industry – toward insurers and drug companies and away from doctors and patients.

Doctors, in fact, appear to be the biggest losers. Sure, they’ll get more patients, but the bill will increase the demand for care at a time when the U.S. already faces a physician shortage. The docs got little in the way of increased federal money, and no assurances that Congress won’t enact further cuts in Medicare payments. And faced with the uncertainty of the post-2014 changes, insurers will be more stringent than ever on cost control.

As for the overall cost of the bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimates – that it will cut the deficit by $138 billion over a decade – may be optimistic, but it’s doubtful the overall costs will be less than the rising expense of leaving the current system in place.

Yes, we have reform. Just not reform that lives up to its superlatives.

19 Responses

“As for the overall cost of the bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimates – that it will cut the deficit by $138 billion over a decade – may be optimistic, but it’s doubtful the overall costs will be less than the rising expense of leaving the current system in place. ”

Take out all of the double counting and we are talking about a deficit increase of $1 Trillion. And that is based on the government’s numbers, which are always optimistic. When healthcare kicks in, it will be a short time until we are so bankrupt that all the kings’ horses and all of the kings’ men wont be able to print enough money to pretend we are solvent.

This morning one of the local news stations stated the bill is now over 4,000 pages and they quote Pelosi as saying they should pass the bill so they could find out what was really in the bill. If no one really knows whats in the bill how can they make all these promises?

No one won here. The drug companies got punishing new taxes. The insurers got ‘the wise hand’ of government steering their ship. Taxpayers are tearful and dizzy from the smoke and mirrors needed to make it ‘budget’ neutral.

Don’t worry about doctors. Yes, they got the biggest screw of them all, but the authors of the legislation knew the cuts to physician reimbursement would be easy to repeal with popular support. They could stick in half a trillion in cuts to doctors in order to make it ‘balance’ and them pull them back out in October. 100% sure it will happen that way.

This wasn’t reform. It was business as usual and marks a tiny shift in power to a few more political appointees in DC. Step…. by step.

I’m glad that something was done for health care – despite what the writer and these back-asswards racist people here in this state think. Will the system be perfect – of course not, but I believe it will make things a lot better for all Americans. Republicans will soon learn that it’s easier to work with people than oppose them just because you don’t get your way. You can’t play with your ball all of the time.

anyone who thinks this bill is good has been drinking the obama kool aid to damn long.

I mean come on, this bill gives the IRS permission to go into your bank account and take your money out of your bank account if the government decides your health care is not sufficient enough, OR you chose not to have insurance period.

There is nothing fair or good about a bloated complicated bill that forces people to purchase insurance from a for-profit company – if they wanted to just help the American people who need insurance, they could have written a much better bill without any language to benefit insurance or drug companies. The Dems will continue to tout the “great” benefits to uninsured Americans, but you won’t hear a peep about the now-mandated enrichment of the insurers and pharma and how the lobbyist dollars have driven this legislation. If all of Congress had also included themselves among those Americans who must live by this bill, they would have at least SOME integrity.

“As for the overall cost of the bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimates – that it will cut the deficit by $138 billion over a decade – may be optimistic, …”

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Well, I respectfully submit that CBO, BHO, and his lib cohorts ALL conveniently (or intentionally) overlooked a very important aspect of the final cost. I submit that every person forced into the system (which also means being forced to PAY A PREMIUM) will do everything they can to assure they get maximum benefit for their money! THAT, my friends will drastically increase the cost of care, and result in a severe defecit, NOT a surplus!

What did people think Obama was holding secret meetings with Big Pharma to get us a better deal? Just like I’m sure Bush was hosting secret meetings with oil execs to get the price of gas reduced……Anyone wnat to buy some ocean front property in Oklahoma?

“If you don’t like it vote for people who agree with you, but in a democracy you don’t always get your way.” Posted by: Witty Nickname

IT WAS INCONSTITUTIONAL. And this is not a Democrazy it’s a Republic. Maybe that’s why you liberals are so confused about reality. LAst thing…nobdy is gonna “get their way” with this disaster, and you’ll realize that when you have to wait 18 months for treatment after you find out you have cancer.

@Chris…thanks for the compliment. So why did you have to move here? Ruined your old state?